Maialino's Olive Oil Cake
Author Notes: Olive oil cake at its best has a crackling crust and an aromatic oil-rich middle, which, if it held any more moisture, would be pudding. Pulling this off should be easy—there aren't even egg whites to whip and fold, or butter to cream—but it isn't always. This one, however, is perfect, and will ruin you for all others. Recipe from Maialino Restaurant in New York City, where they also serve it at breakfast in muffin form, and they've been known to turn it into a birthday cake, layered with mascarpone buttercream. The recipe is pictured here with Michelle Polzine's Slow-Roasted Strawberries from the forthcoming Genius Desserts cookbook (Ten Speed Press, September 2018). —Genius Recipes
Makes: a 9-inch round cake
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 1 hrs
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2
cups (250g) all-purpose flour
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1 3/4
cups (350g) sugar
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1 1/2
teaspoons kosher salt
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1/2
teaspoon baking soda
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1/2
teaspoon baking powder
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1 1/3
cups (285g) extra-virgin olive oil
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1 1/4
cups (305g) whole milk
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3
large eggs
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1 1/2
tablespoons grated orange zest
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1/4
cup (60g) fresh orange juice
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1/4
cup (55g) Grand Marnier
- Heat the oven to 350° F. Oil, butter, or spray a 9-inch cake pan that is at least 2 inches deep with cooking spray and line the bottom with parchment paper. (If your cake pan is less than 2 inches deep, divide between 2 pans and start checking for doneness at 30 minutes.)
- In a bowl, whisk the flour, sugar, salt, baking soda and powder. In another bowl, whisk the olive oil, milk, eggs, orange zest and juice and Grand Marnier. Add the dry ingredients; whisk until just combined.
- Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 1 hour, until the top is golden and a cake tester comes out clean. Transfer the cake to a rack and let cool for 30 minutes.
- Run a knife around the edge of the pan, invert the cake onto the rack and let cool completely, 2 hours.
- This recipe is a Community Pick!
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I have made this several times using Cointreau and it is delicious! Maybe the world knows this but I didn't...mix the orange zest with some of the sugar first (I use my fingers) to be sure it is well distributed in the cake. Whenever I mix zest with liquid, it always clumps on the beaters or the whisk.
You might want to take a technique from some pro kitchens - put your flour in a food processor - and process the oil in with it until powdery... then proceed with the other dry ingredients. Then stir the two (wet & dry) together lightly.
NOTE: I've not done that with this recipe, so just suggesting, I can't guarantee the outcome.
One thing I CAN say is that you might want to ensure your pan and oven both are hot. I did mine in a cast iron pan - and it was outstanding. :)
Thanks for that suggestion, which I never would have thought of.......And my oven was hot, but not my pan. Hmmmmm.
I love this cake and have made it many times. But I am still having a problem completely integrating the olive oil. It LOOKS mixed in, but when I slice a piece, I can clearly see a line towards the bottom of the cake, below while appears to be olive oil that isn’t integrated. Another reviewer suggested mixed the eggs and olive oil together before adding the other wet ingredients, but this didn’t work for me either. Does anyone else have a suggestion? The cake tastes delicious but I’m a bit put off by its looks. Thanks.
A very simple and delicious cake. I swapped in vodka for the Grand Marnier, because I didn't have any. I think it was missing the orange flavor. I'll definitely add it next time, along with more orange zest. I served it with Marscapone cheese thinned with orange juice.
For those of us who use the mobile site, the video is incredibly aggravating, and interferes with the use of other apps. I get why you want video content, but could you just please leave it in the article, not the recipe?
Kristen is the Creative Director of Food52
I'm sorry to hear this and surprised to hear that it's autoplaying on mobile. What type of mobile device are you using? I hope that at least you can pause the video after it starts playing.
I'm planning to make this cake for a big gathering (80+ people) and I figure I'll need to multiply the recipe by 6. I will be using larger pans and so am wondering if I should use a smaller proportion of baking powder than the original recipe -- eg., less than the 3 teaspoons I'd get with straight multiplication. Any advice?
this is where the professionals would suggest a test run, but that’s not always possible. if i were to do this i would make the six separate batches and fill the larger pans evenly with those six batches. not sure if this is the best idea chemistry-wise, but it’s what i would try if no one offers a tried and true solution. good luck meredith, and let us know what you decide and how it turns out!
One large batch is hard to manage, I have small/medium mixing bowls. maybe 3 batches and do 2 at a time or two batches and 3 at a time, depends on how many you can bake at a time too. keep the same amount of baking powder. If its a little more fluffy, it's a bonus. as soon as the baking powder hits moist dough, it starts working so you don't want it sitting unbaked too long so it's a matter of timing your batches and oven readiness for the batches.
Thanks for the feedback! I will have access to a mondo Hobart commercial mixer so a single large batch is a possibility, albeit a rather intimidating one. We shall see ...
Kristen is the Creative Director of Food52
Hi Meredith, I heard from a friend of a friend who's made this cake for 2 weddings (!) and wanted to share her advice:
"Of course! I've used it as layers in two wedding cakes now and it has gone off beautifully. I've tripled the recipe and baked it in 3 different sized (tiered) pans.
I have a standard mixer so doubling or tripling the recipe is my max for the bowl.
I didn't encounter any issues with having to adjust ingredients but did find (since it is a thinner batter) that when baked in the larger pans, the 'domed' part of the top of the cake wasn't quite done when the rest of the cake had baked.
Since I was using it as layers in the cake I had to level out the 'dome' anyway so this didn't affect too much."
Thanks, Kristen and thanks to your friend! So glad to have that info about the variability on the bake time. I'm doing the roasted strawberries, too, but will make those well ahead of time.
For anyone wondering if it's possible to make the cake for 80+ people and not lose your mind: yes. I multiplied the recipe 7 times, made two batches in restaurant-size Hobart mixer, baked in 2 sheet pans. Because of the larger pans, I baked at 325 instead of 350. Recipe continues to blow people's minds.
I think this amazing recipe used to be accompanied by amazing photos. Nothing against the video, but please bring back photos! Please don't start replacing photos with videos.
Kristen is the Creative Director of Food52
Hi hannahmh, we're hoping to be able to show both photos and videos in the future, but that will take some engineering work and we figure the video is more useful to cooks for now. Don't worry, the original photos still exist behind the scenes, and you can see them on these article pages: https://food52.com/blog...
https://food52.com/blog...
the video auto-plays on the mobile site and it is incredibly frustrating.
Well, flipping it over after 30 minutes did not work out so well.
It broke apart. It is heavy than most cakes, and was still warm, so bad idea. I guess my spring form pan was heavy also.
You didn't need to flip it over. I used a springform pan, 9". It turned out awesome.
WOW, Excellent! I just made it. I used 1 1/2 cups of sugar, and cashew milk. Those were the only changes. The recipe is perfect on its own. I had to bake it for 1 1/2 hours, at 350. It is rich, moist, tastes like an expensive cake that you would get at an Italian restaurant. We had it without anything else on top or over it, it doesn't need it and would over power the orange flavor in my opinion. Thank you for the recipe.
fyi, the Mascarpone frosting is really fabulous, in no way overpowering - but the cake can easily stand on its own 😉😍.
Not having a cake tin, I baked mine in a 10' cast iron pan. Don't make the same mistake I did - I heated the pan to warm it and spread oil on the bottom. I forgot that I handn't placed it in the heated oven, so it sat on top of a stove for 10 minutes. I realized that I had probably ruined it, but i put it in the oven for the rest of the cooking time. Let's just say - after shaving off the bottom 1" from the cake - it's still DELISH!!! LOL. Some peeps shouldn't bake a lot. Like me. But I still managed to have an awesome dessert!!!
Made this last night - only topped it with a processed mix of dark chocolate and walnuts.... that was tasty.
However, hubby felt the orange flavor should have been stronger. Next time I'll use OJ concentrate instead of OJ.
The texture was almost like a stiff pudding, it was sooooo delightful!!!
I combined two recipes (Giada polenta and almond meal cake) in order to make it gluten-free but the batter was so very liquidy that I worried it would not set or rise. But, it did! Very delicious and moist. Easy, too. So, basically, just sub almond flour and polenta for the flour here and you are good to go.
What ratio of almond flour to polenta did you use? Sounds good!
I made this yesterday and we all loved it. It is a moist, dense and perfumed delight! I think that the key for success is not changing a thing in the recipe.
Agreed
I made this for a dinner party with the roasted strawberries and mascarpone whipped cream. Oh, my. Absolutely perfect. I took the advice of a commenter to whisk the eggs together with the olive oil before mixing in the other wet ingredients to emulsify the oil into the batter and it was perfect - moist, not oily. I used fresh Meyer lemon juice and homemade limoncello instead of the orange. So, so good.
Possibly the best and easiest olive oil cake i made in life. Thank you!
Hi, I made this yesterday, we love it!! I had made something similar before with limoncello and pistachios, but it wasn’t as moist. The only question I have is, does the whole batter fit into the 9” round mold? I was scared it would overflow and poured some of the batter into a 12 mini poundcake mold (4 came out) and cooked them for 18 min. The round one was ready in 40 min. Thanks!
Kristen is the Creative Director of Food52
Hi Yolanda, glad you liked it! Was your cake pan 2 inches deep or more (see step 1)? That seems to be the benchmark for needing to pour some batter into another pan.
I make this with lemoncello, lemon juice/zest, and rosemary. It's wonderful! (if I do say so myself, lol)
Could I make this with lemon instead of orange? Would it be too sour ?
lemon would work too. i used lemoncello (lemon liqueur) since i don’t care for orange flavors. the third time i made the cake i added lavender flowers for visual interest. awesome cake!
Yes! I recently made this with Meyer lemons and the Grand Marnier and made cupcakes (I know) for a one year old’s birthday party. I made a Mascarpone/ cream cheese frosting and everyone freaked out. So good. Even the birthday boy could not be stopped from eating the whole thing. 😍
yes, i also frost with a mascarpone icing and it is to die for! will not make it without!
This is how I always make this recipe. For some reason, people are more apt to eat dessert in cupcake form. It's my family's favorite dessert. Fun but elegant!
The icing sounds good, can you share how you made it? thanks
hi lululand, replace the butter in a butter cream icing entirely or mostly. i like a litttle butter, then triple the amount of mascarpone, add vanilla, milk and powdered sugar. sorry i don’t measure; i go by look and consistency. but you can google recipes for a mascarpone icing or even cream cheese icing if you prefer. enjoy!
Good idea, thank you!
This has become my favorite cake of all time. It is soooo good.
Mary Henderson - you can use orange juice in place of the Grand Marnier and/or blood orange olive oil in place of the regular olive oil. : )
Thank you, can't wait to make it!
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